This invention relates generally to the transporting of clothes in vehicles and deals more particularly with a hanger bracket which may be used in an automobile or other vehicle to support hanging garments.
Many vehicles are equipped with small clothing hooks which are typically located above the rear windows. Although a small number of garments can be hung on this type of hook without difficulty, the conventional automobile hook is incapable of handling larger volumes of clothes such as garments transported by persons traveling for business or pleasure or persons transporting garments to or from a commercial cleaner.
In order to accommodate larger volumes of hanging clothes, long bars with loops on the opposite ends are often suspended from the automobile hooks on opposite sides of the vehicle. This type of clothes bar is only useful if hooks are present across from one another on both sides of the vehicle. Even then, the bar and the clothes hung from it occupy substantially the entire back seat, thus making it unavailable for passengers. Moreover, the vision of the driver is obstructed by the bar and the clothes hanging from it. The length of the bar also makes storage of it difficult when it is not in use. Normally, the bar must be stored in the trunk, and this makes it relatively inaccessible and adds to the time and difficulty involved in setting it up and taking it down. In addition, the conventional clothing bar is unsightly and gives the vehicle an objectionable "traveling salesman" look.
Other types of vehicle clothes hangers that have been proposed are subject to many of the same shortcomings and to other problems as well. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,532,909 and 2,617,571 to Hart disclose hanger bars that extend across the entire width of the vehicle. The device shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,526,285 to Schuyler is equally unsatisfactory because of the need for a special mounting bracket. Although the devices disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,002,666 to Silverman, 3,275,161 to Robertson and 3,708,093 to Toms can be hung on a single automobile hook, all of these devices are lacking in versatility and are unsatisfactory in a number of additional respects. None of the devices disclosed in the aforementioned patents has met with significant commercial success, in large part because of the shortcomings mentioned above.